The UN chief voiced alarm Monday at rising violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank and calls for annexation after Israel announced expanded military operations in the Palestinian territory.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said human rights are being “suffocated” around the world, lashing out at voices of division and anger who see them as a barrier to their quest for power and profit.

“I am gravely concerned by the rising violence in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers and other violations, as well as calls for annexation,” Guterres told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

His remarks came a day after Israeli settlers reportedly set fire to several buildings in a Bedouin village near Jaba, a Palestinian town in the central West Bank. Later two young Israelis were wounded after being attacked by Palestinians, also in the central West Bank.

Violence in the West Bank has surged since the start of the Gaza war that began with Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023, attack inside Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The thousands of terrorists that Hamas led in the attack also abducted 251 people to Gaza as hostages.

Guterres on Monday stressed the importance of the fragile ceasefire in place in Gaza since January 19.

“We are witnessing a precarious ceasefire. We must avoid at all costs a resumption of hostilities. The people in Gaza have already suffered too much,” he said. “It’s........

© The Times of Israel